=== Sportsx ===

Contributors: WPInterface
Tags: custom-background, custom-logo, custom-menu, featured-images, threaded-comments, translation-ready

Requires at least: 5.9
Tested up to: 7.1
Requires PHP: 7.4
Version: 1.2.6
License: GNU General Public License v2 or later
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

SportsX is a dynamic and visually appealing WordPress theme tailored for sports enthusiasts, bloggers, and publishers. It features a sleek, modern design that emphasizes high-impact images and bold text, making it ideal for presenting the latest sports news, scores, and detailed analysis in a captivating way. The theme offers customizable features, allowing you to easily adjust layouts and styles to suit your needs. Interactive galleries bring your content to life, while seamless social media integration ensures your posts reach a wider audience. Whether you’re focusing on major professional leagues or local sports events, SportsX provides a robust platform to engage and inform your readers, creating an immersive and enjoyable browsing experience.

== Copyright ==

Sportsx WordPress Theme, (C) 2024 WPInterface
Sportsx is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

== Description ==

Sportsx is a modern WordPress theme perfect for viral news portals, magazines, newspapers, personal blogs, and publishing websites. It is fully customizable with widgets and a live customizer editor. The theme also includes multiple custom Elementor addon, providing enhanced design options. Additionally, Sportsx is fully integrated with the WooCommerce plugin, allowing you to create an amazing shop to sell products directly from your website. With the one-click demo importer, you can quickly set up a professional news site in no time.

== Installation ==

1. In your admin panel, go to Appearance > Themes and click the Add New button.
2. Click Upload Theme and Choose File, then select the theme's .zip file. Click Install Now.
3. Click Activate to use your new theme right away.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Does this theme support any plugins? =

Sportsx includes support for WooCommerce and for Infinite Scroll in Jetpack.

== Changelog ==

= 1.2.6 - 2026-10-15 =
* Fix - The Free vs Pro table now shows its category headings.
* Enhancement - Redesigned welcome notice: compact, uses the theme screenshot and the plugins' WordPress.org icons, shows a "plugins ready" state, and appears only on the Dashboard and Themes screens.
* Enhancement - Redesigned theme dashboard (Appearance › SportsX) with a setup checklist that follows your site's progress, Customizer shortcuts and a new Recommended tab for WPInterface services, plugins and themes.
* Enhancement - The Recommended tab can list every WPInterface theme from WordPress.org. The list loads only when you click "Show all WPInterface themes", is cached for 12 hours, and screenshots load lazily.
* Enhancement - Starter sites tab redesigned to match the new dashboard, with preview and import buttons for each starter site plus the Pro starter site with its preview and an upgrade link, and a note that importing adds demo content, with the option to have the design set up on an existing site instead (imports still run in One Click Demo Import).
* Enhancement - "What's new" changelog panel opens from the dashboard header, with colour-coded labels for security updates, new features, enhancements, improvements and fixes.
* Enhancement - More visible "Upgrade to Pro" button in the dashboard header and an upgrade section below the Free vs Pro table.
* Enhancement - The Overview tab now shows animated previews of SportsX Pro's accessibility toolbar (with a demo you can try) and of the SEO plugin included with Pro. They use HTML and CSS only (no images or external requests), pause when off screen and stay still for users who prefer reduced motion.
* Enhancement - New Header Style previews in the Customizer: SVG drawings that show each header layout as it really looks, in the theme's own colours, two per row, replacing the small grey images.
* Enhancement - The review request notice has the new notice design (like the welcome notice) and shows on the Dashboard and Themes screens only.
* Enhancement - Faster loading: the theme's own stylesheets and scripts now load as minified files, with right-to-left versions for RTL languages. With SCRIPT_DEBUG on, the readable files load instead.
* Tweak - Dashboard and notice styles and scripts now load only on the screens that use them, without jQuery; dashboard images went from about 743 KB to 56 KB.
* Tweak - Recommended plugins are installed and activated through WordPress core screens; removed the old install/activate AJAX handlers.
* Tweak - Readme credits for the dashboard images and icons.
* Tweak - Removed Elementor from the recommended plugins; the theme supports it but does not need it.
* Enhancement - Faster first paint: the web fonts' CSS and the small preloader and comments stylesheets are printed inline instead of loaded as separate files, and the body font (on single posts and pages also the title font) is preloaded, so the text doesn't reflow when the fonts arrive.
* Enhancement - The featured image of a single post is fetched first (fetchpriority high) and never lazy-loaded, also when other images come before it on the page.
* Fix - The Popular Posts slider no longer shifts the page when it starts: the slides are laid out as Swiper will show them before it runs.
* Fix - The top bar clock is filled in straight away and keeps its space, so the top bar no longer moves a second after the page loads; without a social menu, the top bar no longer gets an empty extra row on narrow screens.
* Tweak - The Ajax pagination script loads only on post lists that use Ajax pagination, and the preloader stylesheet only when the preloader is on.
* Fix - Accessibility: the news ticker has a heading for screen readers; post date and author links are 24px tall.
* Fix - The reading progress bar uses one scroll listener (it added another one on every scroll).
* Fix - Without JavaScript the preloader is no longer shown, since nothing would hide it.
* Tweak - The top bar date is escaped.
* Fix - Saving widgets no longer logs PHP warnings for fields the form does not send, such as unticked boxes and empty lists.
* Fix - The "Enable Sticky Sidebar" option for single posts shows in the Customizer again; it was placed in a panel instead of a section, so WordPress hid it.
* Tweak - Tab Posts widget: removed the "Date Format" field; the widget shows no dates, so it did nothing.
* Tweak - The mobile social menu style default now matches its "Has Brand Background" choice exactly (no visible change).
* Fix - Accessibility: icon-only buttons (search, menu, close, back to top, slider arrows) have a name for screen readers.
* Fix - Accessibility: slider dots are tap targets of at least 24px; the visible dot keeps its size.
* Fix - Accessibility: category labels are 24px tall tap targets, without changing the layout.
* Fix - Accessibility: links in the footer copyright and credit text are underlined, so they don't rely on colour alone.
* Fix - Accessibility: titles cut to a few lines no longer have their hidden lines lying over the date link below.
* Enhancement - Faster loading on the blog and front page: the first banner image (or the first post image when there is no banner) is fetched first (fetchpriority high, never lazy-loaded) and preloaded from the page head on later visits; images above it no longer compete for the browser's high-priority slot.
* Enhancement - The reading progress bar takes its first measurement in the next frame, so it no longer forces an extra layout while the page loads.
* Fix - Accessibility: the post list's "Read More" link no longer has a hidden label that differs from its visible text: screen readers hear the visible text followed by the post title.
* Fix - Accessibility: the tabs of the front page banner and of the tabbed posts widget are announced as tabs: the list items around them no longer break the tab list.
* Fix - Accessibility (colour contrast, WCAG AA 4.5:1): the primary colour is #e42424 (was #f23732), the secondary and component colours (banner tabs, category labels 5 and 6) are #e10285 and #027f9e (were #ff329c and #03b9e4), post dates and authors are at 61% (was 55%) and sidebar excerpts at 54% (was 45%) of the text colour.

= 1.2.5 - 2026-10-15 =
* Security - The welcome notice's "Get started" button can no longer be used by users without plugin permissions to install plugins; the notice is now shown only to administrators.
* Security - Load More requests now only accept viewable post types, and incomplete requests are rejected cleanly instead of raising PHP warnings.
* Security - Category colour and thumbnail settings now verify a nonce and the user's permission before saving.
* Fix - Category colours are no longer erased when a category is changed with Quick Edit or updated by a plugin or import.
* Fix - Minimum PHP version raised from 5.6 to 7.4; the theme code already requires PHP 7 and would not run on older versions.
* Tweak - The review request notice is shown to administrators only.
* Tweak - Review notice data is now removed with a single query when switching themes instead of loading every user.
* Tweak - Updated the translation template (POT) with the new and changed strings.

= 1.2.4 - 2026-09-29 =
* Enhancement - Added developer action and filter hooks so child themes and plugins can customize the theme without overriding template files.
* Enhancement - New actions around main content, posts, entry content, entry footer, sidebar, footer and header (e.g. sportsx_before_post, sportsx_after_main_content, sportsx_header_actions).
* Enhancement - Post meta, single post sections (author info, related posts, author posts, sticky navigation) and footer parts now run on action hooks and can be removed or reordered with remove_action().
* Enhancement - New filters for post classes, page layout, theme options, excerpt, read more text, read time, breadcrumb, post navigation, search title, site title tag, copyright text and related/author/recommended post queries.
* Fix - The second sportsx_before_footer call (after the footer) is now sportsx_after_footer, so callbacks on sportsx_before_footer no longer run twice.

= 1.2.3 - 2026-08-30 =
* Enhancement - Added compatibility with WordPress 7.1
* Enhancement - Mobile menu dropdown

= 1.2.2 - 2026-07-16 =
* Enhancement - Improved CSS

= 1.2.1 - 2026-06-08 =
* Enhancement - Added compatibility with WordPress 7.0
* Enhancement - Improved CSS

= 1.2.0 - 2026-05-01 =
* Enhancement - New social media icons and styling support (Substack, Patreon, Slack)
* Fix    - Removed Redundant and obsolete social media icons and their associated CSS (Last.fm, Pocket, Foursquare)

= 1.1.9 - 2026-04-11 =
* Fix - Fixed PHP fatal error triggered by function redeclaration during post loop iteration.
* Enhancement - Refactored Elementor widget base classes to avoid overriding deprecated core WordPress functions.

= 1.1.8 - 2026-03-28 =
* Fix - Single post meta options "Enable You May Also Like Section" and "Enable More From Author Section" now correctly override the global Customizer setting. Selecting "No" will always hide the section regardless of the Customizer value.

= 1.1.7 - 2026-02-09 =
* Enhancement - Admin Dashboard

= 1.1.6 - 2025-12-28 =
* Enhancement - Added compatibility with WordPress 6.9
* Fix - Critical vulnerability in legacy WooCommerce compatibility code by removing unused and insecure AJAX handler (sportsx_woocommerce_add_cart_ajax).
* Fix - Implemented tamper-proof hash verification for the "Load More" pagination AJAX request to prevent query parameter modification.
* Enhancement - Added a loading spinner inside the "Load More" button for better visual feedback.
* Enhancement - Implemented smooth fade-in and slide-up animations for posts loaded via AJAX pagination.

= 1.1.5 - 2025-11-01 =
* Enhancement - Improved site performance for better PageSpeed Insights results.

= 1.1.4 - 2025-09-15 =
* Enhancement - Streamlined Getting Started button and improved recommended plugin installation
* Fix – Corrected typo

= 1.1.3 - 2025-08-19 =
* Enhancement - Improved CSS

= 1.1.2 - 2025-07-08 =
* Enhancement - Replaced the StumbleUpon icon.

= 1.1.1 - 2025-05-25 =
* Fix    - number_of_category_to_display

= 1.1.0 - 2025-04-04 =
* Enhancement - Design

= 1.0.9 - 2025-03-23 =
* Fix    - Resolved issue with the Background Color customizer option not applying correctly.

= 1.0.8 - 2025-02-14 =
* Fix    - Placeholder image
* Fix    - Admin Dashboard URL

= 1.0.7 - 2024-10-30 =
* Fix    - Sportsx: Categories Widget

= 1.0.6 - 2024-10-21 =
* Fix    - Mobile Menu Options Disable Copyright in Mobile

= 1.0.5 - 2024-10-17 =
* Fix - Minor design issue

= 1.0.4 - 2024-09-29 =
* Fix - Category option issue fixed
* Fix - Minor design issue fixed

= 1.0.3 - 2024-09-03 =
* Fix - Blog Title
* Enhancement - Design

= 1.0.2 - 2024-08-25 =
* Fix - Resolved the issue with enabling/disabling the popular section.

= 1.0.1 - 2024-08-14 =
* Enhancement - Screenshot.
* Fix    - Corrected the slider design issue when the featured image is not set.

= 1.0.0 - 2024-08-08 =
* Release - Initial Version

== Credits ==

* Based on Underscores https://underscores.me/, (C) 2012-2020 Automattic, Inc., [GPLv2 or later](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
* normalize.css https://necolas.github.io/normalize.css/, (C) 2012-2018 Nicolas Gallagher and Jonathan Neal, [MIT](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
* Breadcrumb Trail https://themehybrid.com/plugins/breadcrumb-trail, (C) 2008 - 2017, Justin Tadlock, [GPLv2 or later](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
* Theme Dashboard Page Code from ColorMag Theme By ThemeGrill, We have taken a partial codebase as a base and built ours on its foundation, making significant changes. Not used as is. [GPLv3 or later](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt)
* Webfont Loader (https://github.com/WPTT/webfont-loader), (C) 2020 WPTT, MIT License
* Swiper.js (https://github.com/nolimits4web/swiper), (Copyright (c) 2019 Vladimir Kharlampidi, [MIT](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
* Header style previews (assets/images/header-*.svg): drawn for this theme, [GPLv2 or later](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
* Dashboard icons (inline SVG in inc/admin/dashboard/class-admin.php) based on Lucide https://lucide.dev, (C) Lucide Contributors, [ISC](https://lucide.dev/license)


== Image Used ==
Theme dashboard images

* inc/admin/dashboard/images/theme-thumb.webp: a resized copy of this theme's screenshot (images credited above).
* inc/admin/dashboard/images/pro-starter.webp: a resized screenshot of the SportsX Pro starter site (https://demo.wpinterface.com/sportsx-pro/).
* inc/admin/dashboard/images/plugin-*.webp: the icons of the recommended plugins, taken from each plugin's page on WordPress.org (https://wordpress.org/plugins/), (C) their respective authors. They are shown only to identify those plugins.

Image for theme screenshot

Copyright pxhere
License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
License URL: https://pxhere.com/en/license
Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1135605

Copyright pxhere
License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
License URL: https://pxhere.com/en/license
Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1255491

Copyright pxhere
License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
License URL: https://pxhere.com/en/license
Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/897006

Copyright pxhere
License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
License URL: https://pxhere.com/en/license
Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/749563